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Well one amusing thing is about 6 or 7 years ago when they reviewed knives then in the Cooks Illustrated magazine, after the usual praise of Forschner etc. they had a little box that said "what does $450 buy you" - about, I kid you not a small unknown custom knife maker named Kramer based in Seattle, explaining how they were just the best. I wish I taken their advice and bought a few of them :- )

as each one would probably be worth upwards of 8k now

As a home cook I love their recipes, I haven't found their equipment reviews anywhere near as useful....

I, too, have used a lot of ATK's recipes, and some are actually quite good. For the most part they're geared towards home cooks with limited skills, but they've been expanding their repertoire over the past couple of years, as they've just about exhausted everything that could be possibly sold to Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

Their equipment reviews, on the other hand, are atrocious. For the most part, they've got a competent, skilled, likeable crew. But this lady, Lisa McManus, is about as useful as a bag of rocks. How, where and why they ever picked her up is just beyond me. It's bad enough that they dumb everything down and start singling out products due their own biases even before they begin testing. Their knife "reviews" are the worst of the bunch. It's all trickle down from the head honcho - Chris Kimball - as he has no interest in knives at all.

I recently heard he went to the same school as Alton Brown of "I Can't Cook So I'll Make Cook Books and Videos." All he can do is roll out pie dough, and even at that he's a complete klutz.

These guys can take the simplest, most delicious, traditional recipes, and "improve them"...that is to say... complicate it to the point that the extra steps in preparation, additional dirty utensils and cooking time, that it isn't worth the effort...with absolutely no assurance that theirs will taste any better than the original recipe, IMHO. I don't even bother watching it any more. Not to mention that the mere sight of Chris Kimball sets my teeth on edge. ;-)

He has a little empire that generates a lot of money for him-many millions per year I have read. They constantly recycle recipes in every possible form you can imagine and many you can't and having met Mr. Kimball once I can echo that he will set you teeth on edge. They are also known to be very difficult to deal with if you inadvertently get into one of their "negative" checkoff situations by subscribing to one of their book series. They charge separately for the magazine and for online access to back issues. So all in all not a nice company.

Still, and somewhat ironically, I find as a home cook their recipes are almost always very good and so they and Mark Bittman are my standard sources but cooks illustrated magazine is way ahead of cooks country or american test kitchen of their three magazines......

Many, many years ago I made a decision to subscribe to a cooking magazine....and chose CI over Saveur. I regret that that as much as the decision to marry my first wife.
I agree with the point that it's geared to the home cook and in that respect it's pretty good, goofy test criteria not withstanding.
I have made some purchases based on the results of their test results; a top rated blender which I think sucks, and a set of Gourmet Standard cookware for the price of one piece of All Clad which was an amazing bargain.
Their sales division is also pretty ruthless. I kept getting bills for stuff that they had allegedly sent to me in NJ even though I was already living here. Took forever to straighten that out.

Though I could not caution all I still might warn a few; Don't raise your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools. - Robert Hunter

Their sales division is also pretty ruthless. I kept getting bills for stuff that they had allegedly sent to me in NJ even though I was already living here. Took forever to straighten that out.

And even tho' they say after every show that their recipes are free on line, when you look up one of their recipes on line, they block the recipe and try to force you to pop for 25 bucks, or so, to become a member. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free two week subscription, which I've done numerous times, which works for THAT recipe. Then when you go back a couple days later....they hit you with the same BS, apparently forgetting all about your free two week subscription. So annoying I've given up altogether. If I want the recipe badly enough (which is rare) I go to another online post where some dumbass has paid his 25 subscription bucks and has helpfully cut and pasted the recipe, from their site, just for me I guess. ;-)